


Watermark

by fairietailed



Series: Dear True Love [1]
Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Soul Mate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 15:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8406739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairietailed/pseuds/fairietailed
Summary: He hops into the kitchen on one foot, catching his mother before she carries the bowl of peas she’s holding into the dining room.
“Jeremy?” Her eyebrows pull together in concern at the look on his face. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he says, sticking out his foot. “I think it’s my soul mate?”
--

  In which bruises and scars from your soulmate appear on your skin, and Jeremy's skin is a myriad of colored stains.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the All For The Game Exchange!!
> 
> wesawbears on Tumblr gave the prompt of a jerejean soulmate AU and.... This was the first thing that came to mind. 
> 
> This is my first exchange, and I had a lot of fun with it. I hope you enjoy it!

The first soul mark appears three days after his 10th birthday.

The sun sets over the hills behind his house, bathing the valley in a dark orange glow that always leaves him breathless. He sits on the backyard swing his dad made for him three years ago, letting his toes dip low into the grass, scraping along the dirt beneath him.

He thinks that maybe his foot has fallen asleep when the static-feeling of losing circulation runs through his left foot. He shakes it out, as if hoping for it to go away, when a brown patch slowly creeping over his toes catches his eye. He watches as it spreads over his last 3 toes, moving up the top of his foot a few inches. It looks like he’s stepped in mud, and he frowns a bit, wiggling his toes to make sure there’s still movement in them. Once he ensures that there is, he flies off of the swing, running toward the house.

He stumbles across the lawn, the tingling sensation in his foot still not fully gone. He hops into the kitchen on one foot, catching his mother before she carries the bowl of peas she’s holding into the dining room.

“Jeremy?” Her eyebrows pull together in concern at the look on his face, and the obvious way he holds his foot a bit off the ground as he limps to the kitchen table, dropping into a nearby chair. “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” he says, sticking out his foot. “I think it’s my soul mate?”

His mother drops the bowl, the peas scattering across the floor at her feet.

* * *

He’s 13 the first time a mark doesn’t disappear.

He runs his fingers along the bruise, tracing it along his cheekbone and sighing to himself as he sits on his kitchen counter, legs crossed. His mother stands in front of him, frowning a bit, humming to herself as she pokes at his cheek gently.

“Is it bad?” He asks, breaking the silence that’s settled into the small kitchen.

His mother hums again, pulling back, fingers still brushing his skin. “No, I don’t think it’s bad.”

“Will it go away?”

His mom shrugs. “I’m not sure,” she says truthfully, and Jeremy frowns.

“Why not? Won’t it go away?”

“Jeremy-” His mother sighs, stepping away from the counter. She makes her way to the fridge, pulling out a soda and a juice box, tossing the box to him and leaning against the counter to open the soda for herself. The juice is grape flavored. Jeremy makes a face.

“I’m not an expert on these things,” she says, shrugging. “I can’t tell you whether this one will stay. Your grandpa used to tell me that the only marks that stayed were ones that were cut deep enough to never fully heal. I’ve also heard that ones that stick are ones that don’t heal  _ right _ .”

“Isn’t that kind of the same thing?” Jeremy asks, touching his cheek without thinking. He wonders what kind of injury his soulmate would have had to receive for this kind of bruise to stay.

“Sometimes,” his mother agrees. “Sometimes not, though. I also read somewhere once that soul marks don’t fade if the injury is emotionally scarring enough, too, but I’m not sure if I believe it.”

“Emotionally scarring?”

He frowns, his stomach dropping through the counter and straight to the floor. His mother recovers quickly, setting her soda behind her and waving a hand dismissively.

“But I’m sure that everything is fine, Jer,” she says, attempting a smile.

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, sliding off of the counter and making his way to his room. “Sure.”

He wakes up every day for the next week seeing nothing but the bruise beneath his eye in the mirror.

* * *

He’s 15 when he cuts open his calf bad enough to need stitches.

He does it on a dare; Kelly had bet him $10 that he couldn’t clear Mr. Walter’s back fence in one go, Jeremy had told her to get her wallet ready -- his leg catches on a stray piece of barbed wire and he goes down instantly, grabbing at his leg and letting a string of curses fall from his mouth that would probably have his mother frowning in disapproval.

“You owe me ten bucks,” Kelly says as she squats down in the dirt next to Jeremy. “You got caught, so you didn’t clear it.”

“I think that’s the least of my worries,” he says back, and Kelly hisses as she spots the blood on his hands. She helps him up, supporting his weight until they reach his house.

His mother  _ does _ give him a look of disapproval, and the whole ordeal leaves him with a scar that wraps around the back of his calf.

He wonders if his soul mate now has a permanent scar on their  _ own _ leg -- one to match the bruise that still sits on Jeremy’s own cheek.

* * *

On the night of Jeremy’s 16th birthday, he wakes up screaming.

There’s pain, blinding pain, and it radiates across his entire body. His head feels like it may cave in, his knees feel like they might break, his chest feels like it’s caving in, he won’t make it, he won’t make it,  _ he won’t make it- _

His mother is in his room within minutes of his cries, and she turns on the light as she flies through the door. But within the same breath she recoils, slamming against the wall and holding a hand to her mouth, as if to keep herself from screaming along with her son.

She recovers after a moment of hesitation, sweeping across the floor to drop to her knees beside Jeremy’s bed.

“Baby,” she whispers, combing her fingers through his hair, “baby, it’s alright. You’re alright. Can you hear me?”

Jeremy’s choked sobs are the only answer she gets, and her lips form a tight line as she stands, pulling up the comforter and crawling into bed beside him. She pulls him close, hugging him to her chest and whispering words of comfort into his hair as he cries.

His whole body feels simultaneously set on fire and dropped in ice. The static of half-asleep limbs crawls under his skin, along his arms and his legs and even his brain, and every time he moves it feels like he’s hit a brick wall.

It lasts through the entire night, and it finally stops at half past 3 in the morning.

* * *

He doesn’t wake up until nearly 4 P.M. the next day.

He drags himself from the bed, attempting to move in the direction of the bathroom. His mother stands, too, stepping in front of him and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Jeremy,” she says, and it sounds like a command.

_ No _ , she means, and it makes his stomach lurch.

“I want to,” he says, and she chews at the inside of her cheek in agitation.

_ I have to _ , he means, and she frowns in reluctant understanding.

He moves slowly, still slightly dizzy as he pulls himself up and grips the wall for support, shuffling down the hallway to the bathroom. He turns on the light, closing his eyes as he moves in front of the mirror, gripping the sink and taking a deep breath.

He opens his eyes.

Patches of green and brown and purple cover his face -- they move up into his hairline, across his jaw and his neck and across his collar bones. He claws at his shirt, pulling it off over his head, and flinches back at the sight of even more bruises along his torso, covering his back and his chest and his stomach.

He staggers backwards away from the sink, slamming into the bathroom wall and sinking to the floor. He doesn’t move until late into the evening, moving back to his bed and pulling his comforter over his head.

The bruises disappear within the day, but fresh ones appear in their place.

* * *

He becomes used to the pain.

It’s not exactly pain as much as it is the sensation of bruises forming across his skin, some as dark as navy blue and others nothing more than a light pink.

He becomes used to the stares -- becomes used to the looks of pity from his teachers as he hands them his assignments, half of his fingers sprayed with a faint orange; the looks of horror when he strips off his shirt to swim, his back a myriad of criss-crossing grey and magenta strips, his front a collage of polka-dotted bruises the same size and shape as exy balls.

He becomes used to the pain in the middle of the night in places that he prefers to pretend aren’t hurting.

He wakes up every morning to new bruises and old, some permanent in their appearance and some already fading, and he plans for the day that he can save the person he knows is on the receiving end of this abuse.

* * *

The number appears on a Tuesday.

He catches it in the morning as he’s brushing his teeth; the dark blue number 3 set on the same cheek as the bruise that’s never disappeared. He leans across the counter numbly, toothbrush hanging halfway out of his mouth, and he traces the loops of the number carefully, his eyebrows pulling together.

He wonders if it’s permanent -- it’d probably have to be, considering pen ink doesn’t show up on soulmates. Kelly and Darren had tried it, once, with no success.

The number disappears after a day and a half, though Jeremy still can’t help but wonder what artist would allow an 18 year old to get a tattoo like this.

* * *

He dreams that he’s drowning.

He can’t feel anything other than the suffocation of the waves, rising and falling and continually pulling him back under. There’s a pain in his wrists, a tightening in his chest and shoulders that drags him down, down, down even farther beneath the waves.

He opens his mouth to scream, to call for help, but his mouth is filled with water instead. It works its way into his lungs, and he chokes on the burning sensation it leaves in his mouth.

His mind becomes hazy, the water pressing in on him from all angles. It forces him down, down, down and away from the sun, away from air away from-

He wakes up choking.

He’s not under water anymore, he’s in his room. Instead of water he’s surrounded by air, though when he opens his mouth he’s unable to breathe in any of it.

His chest tightens around his lungs like it did in his dream, suffocating him and keeping him from crying out for help.

He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe,  _ why can’t he breathe- _

And then he can. He gasps, pulling at his blankets and scrambling upwards as if it will help him reach better oxygen, sucking in lungfuls of air with the desperation of a dying man.

And maybe he is dying, he doesn’t know, but he’s terrified to find out.

The drowning sensation comes back three times in the night, and Jeremy spends the moments in between wondering if his soul mate will make it until the morning.

* * *

Jeremy spends the next two days learning about waterboarding, and the next three nights reexperiencing it second-hand.

* * *

“It’s him.”

His mother jumps at the words, looking up from the magazine she’s reading on the couch. “Who’s him?”

Jeremy shifts closer to the television screen, eyes wide, reaching out toward the glass.

“Jean Moreau.”

The name feels like honey on his tongue, a warmth that he’s never felt washing over him. The corner of his lips quirk upward into a smile, his eyebrows pulling together and a lump forming in his throat.

“The boy being interviewed?” His mother’s voice cuts in behind him. He’d forgotten she was there. “He’s supposed to be starting on the Ravens this year. Maybe you’ll play him once you head back to USC in the fall.”

“Maybe,” Jeremy whispers, head tilting to the side. He catches a glimpse of a scar on Jean’s collar bone, one that wraps around to the center of his chest.

Jeremy knows, because he has one that mirrors it exactly.

He reaches out again, tracing the  _ 3 _ tattooed on the backliner’s cheek.

“Maybe.”

* * *

“French?” His counselor looks at him skeptically, eyebrows raised over her glasses. “Why French?”

Jeremy grins, all charm-and-smiles for the woman in front of him. “It’s always interested me, is all.”

“But it has nothing to do with your major. And you’ve already taken 2 semesters of Spanish. You’re sure you can handle the switch?”

“Of course,” Jeremy says. “I wouldn’t sign up for it otherwise.”

“An easier elective might be better for a full-time athlete, though.” His counselor is persistent. But so is Jeremy. “You already have a full load of classes, plus practice and games-”

“I know that.” He cuts her off, his grin turning dangerously determined. “But I know I can handle it.”

His counselor hums, typing out a few things on her computer.

“Fine,” she says, and Jeremy almost laughs. “I hope it’s beneficial for you.”

“So do I,” Jeremy says back, gathering his things to leave.

* * *

The first time Jeremy Knox meets Jean Moreau, it’s face to face on an exy court.

“You were great,” Jeremy says after the game, reaching out a shaking hand to grasp Jean’s. He holds his helmet underneath his other arm, and he grips his exy stick until his knuckles are white. He tries his best not to puke in front of his soulmate. “Really spectacular.”

Jean stares him down, eyebrows pulled together, eyes flicking to the bruise on Jeremy’s cheekbone before taking his hand. A jolt of what feels like fire roars up his arm and straight into his heart, and it’s as if his entire world becomes three shades brighter.

“I know,” Jean says, dropping Jeremy’s hand. He turns to leave before Jeremy can say anything else.

* * *

Jeremy faces Jean 6 times on the court.

He never gets the chance to talk to him before Riko or Kevin whisk him away.

* * *

“How do you do it?” Alvarez asks him one day, tracing a lilac knife-wound along his inner arm.

“Do what?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“How do you put up with all of this? Doesn’t it hurt you?”

Her voice is soft, but there’s an edge to it that matches the tight set of her jaw, and the pull of her eyebrows. Jeremy can feel her frustration rolling off of her in waves.

“It does,” he answers honestly. “In a lot of different ways.”

* * *

Kevin Day breaks his hand on a ski trip, and Jeremy Knox wakes up in a sea of bruises.

* * *

“I heard he’s playing for Palmetto now,” Laila says, scrolling through an ESPN article about Kevin Day and whether he’d be returning to the court. “He was supposed to be a manager or something but now he wants to play.”

“He could do it,” Alvarez says determinedly. “He’s a fighter.”

Jeremy’s right arm begins to go numb, a dark purple bruise growing along his forearm. He pulls his sleeves down, but not before Laila catches his eye, concern etched into her eyes.

“Yeah,” Jeremy says, gritting his teeth and grinning across the cafeteria table they’re crowded into. “The Ravens are fighters.”

* * *

“Orange or black, Kevin? What color is your future?”

Jeremy’s heart sinks the same moment a fire flashes through Riko Moriyama’s eyes.

“I already said it,” Kevin says, and Jeremy can practically feel the after-sleep feeling in his limbs he knows will appear later tonight. “I would like to stay at Palmetto as long as they’re willing to have me.”

* * *

The Fall Banquet starts off well.

The Ravens are a well-oiled machine. They command respect from the moment they enter; Jeremy’s eyes find Jean almost immediately. Being in different leagues until now, he’d never been able to meet him off of the court.

He wears the same all-black outfit as every other Raven does, but Jeremy is left breathless at the sight of him. Their table is across the court from USC’s, and Alvarez nudges him as he stares.

“It’s weird, huh? Having the Ravens here.”

Jeremy shrugs, eyes not leaving Jean’s back. “I think things will get interesting.”

He tries his best to switch back and forth between conversation with the team sitting across from them and keeping his eyes trained on Jean (and Riko beside him). He isn’t exactly sure what he plans to do, but he does know that there’s a burning in his chest when he notices Riko’s fingers linger on the back of Jean’s neck as he forces him into a chair, and a clenching in his gut at the flinch that Jean gives in return.

He settles down when Alvarez grips his thigh beneath the table.

“You’ll get your chance,” she says lowly, and he nods, reassured by the fact that he can attempt to steal Jean away later, if only for a minute.

Palmetto arrives.

Things get interesting.

Within five minutes of the Foxes arriving, Jean has moved seats, switching from Riko’s right to his left, sitting across from the freshman striker. Jeremy watches the kid’s face stiffen, his eyebrows pulling together slightly at the change in seating. Jean leans across the table, seeming to inspect his face.

Jean says something nonchalantly, and the striker looks like he’s been punched in the stomach.

He recovers quickly, though, shooting back a comment that has Jean tilting his head in thought.

The conversation grows tense before Andrew Minyard leans diagonally across the table, addressing Jean. He huffs in obvious frustration, reaching out and taking the goalkeeper's outstretched hand. Jean is obviously not expecting Minyard’s grip, and his smooth facade gives way for half of a second into a slight scowl.

“Knox.”

A voice cuts in across from him, pulling him back into the conversation with his own team. By the time he can send his attention back across the room, Jean has taken another hand -- this time of Renee Walker.

The look he gives her makes Jeremy’s heart skip, and he feels nauseous at the thought of Walker being able to touch Jean in any way, even casually.

He presses on the bruise he knows sits on his thigh, and he takes a breath.

Jeremy watches the back and forth between Ravens and Foxes like a tennis match. Eventually Kevin speaks, voice low and eyes averted. Jean responds, but Minyard cuts him off, eyes wide, head snapping in Kevin’s direction with a terrifying grin. Jean flicks him an annoyed look, spitting something back in his direction.

Minyard’s smile moves from Kevin to Jean, and Jeremy resists the urge to step between them like a shield.

The Palmetto captain snaps her fingers at the same time Alvarez pokes him in the side.

“-emy? What do you think about Evermore’s switch?”

Jeremy spends 2 minutes involved in a conversation that he has no real opinion on, forcing a smile and faking laughter before a clamour from across the room catches everyone’s attention.

A Raven is scrambling to right one of their glasses, the others staring slack-jawed at the freshman striker sitting next to Minyard and Kevin. Riko’s face is murderous, his eyes cold and frozen on the striker’s face. Wilds looks exhausted, and motions for her boyfriend to leave the table. He scrambles out of his seat, pushing his chair backward so fast it nearly topples.

Jean leans across the table, speaking hurriedly, slight panic evident in his face. He whispers to Kevin urgently, careful to avoid Riko’s gaze.

The striker cuts into the conversation, and Jean staggers. He pulls back a bit, looking like he just swallowed something unpleasant. He looks back and forth between the two Foxes, incredulous.

And then he laughs.

It startles Jeremy, the sound of it, as it’s more panicked and hysterical than happy. It’s hollow, and Jeremy’s heart aches. Palmetto’s coach makes his way to the table, demanding his players move to the other side of the room, closer to USC. Jean catches the freshman striker’s attention before he leaves completely, saying something low enough for only he and Kevin to hear.

Jeremy’s attention is pulled back by Laila, whispering to him from the other side of Alvarez. “What do you think happened over there?”

“I don’t know,” Jeremy says truthfully, “but like I said, things got interesting.”

* * *

The second half of the banquet goes as well as Jeremy had imagined.

Which is, to say, horribly.

The Ravens move into formation almost immediately after dinner, blocking off Jean and Riko to everyone besides those invited to speak to them, Jeremy included. He watches instead from his place beside his team, half-engaged in conversation with Tyler, a 3rd year backliner. He loses all interest in anything he has to say, though, when the Ravens corner the Foxes.

At least this time Jeremy has the option of movement, and he takes full advantage, inching closer to the huddle of all-black. Tyler lets him go with slight confusion, but no argument.

He gets to the formation at the same moment Dan Wilds swings her stilettos in between a Raven striker’s legs.

The Raven formation seems to slightly disperse at the action, and Jeremy gets jostled away by coaches and players attempting to see what was going on. By the time he’s able to find Jean, he’s disappeared, dragging the Palmetto striker along with him.

* * *

The bruises don’t appear until 2 days after the banquet, the same night Jeremy and his team arrive back in California.

* * *

Jeremy wakes up to a slash across his shoulder, the faint shape of stitches outlining the dark red scar.

He changes out in the bathroom for the next week, until the scar fades away.

* * *

“I think you should see someone.”

Laila waits until the locker room is empty to say it, sitting on the couch nearest the coach’s office. Jeremy pauses in searching for the right key on his key ring.

“What?”

She shrugs, swinging forward off of the cushions to grab the lights as they exit the building. “I think you should see someone. About your soul mate.”

Jeremy frowns, locking the stadium doors behind them and making their way through the parking lot to their cars. “Like what, someone to find them? I already told you that I know who they are.”

“No,” Laila says, spinning on her heels and halting Jeremy in his tracks. He stops in the middle of a parking space beneath a street light, and he feels isolated in the darkness around them. “I mean about how you’re coping with this by yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Jeremy says, smiling, and Laila clicks her tongue, tugging at Jeremy’s sleeve.

She pulls it up to nearly his elbows, yanking his arm up so that the crisscrossing scars from the past few days are at eye level.

“This isn’t fine,” she says forcefully, and Jeremy doesn’t have the heart to argue.

* * *

Neil Josten punches Riko Moriyama at the Christmas Banquet.

A similar bruise appears on Jeremy’s face a day later.

* * *

Christmas break comes with a visit to Jeremy’s family, a new Nintendo 3DS, and a roadmap of scars and bruises he covers with fuzzy sweaters and plaid pajama bottoms.

* * *

“Riko and Jean were at the Longhorns/Foxes game. It just ended,” Laila says, bustling her way into Jeremy’s dorm and switching the television on. “And the game was actually really good. Maybe they’ll be stopped for an interview.”

Jeremy ignores her, eyes trailing from his phone to the screen, where commentators are currently arguing over whether Jean Moreau and Renee Walker are an item, the debate arising from the way the Foxes goalkeeper had made her way across the court after the buzzer, offering her hand and a smile to a blushing Jean.

Jeremy catches the red slash across Jean’s knuckles, though, rubbing his thumb over his own mirrored, faint purple mark.

He knows the goalie and Jean aren’t an item, but he definitely hopes that they’re friends.

* * *

“There was a rumor you might transfer to Edgar Allen,” the reporter calls out to Josten, who looks bored after the reveal of the new tattoo on his left cheekbone.

“It was mentioned while I was there,” Neil says, and Jeremy’s heart sinks at the glow of amusement in the striker’s eyes. “But we both know it’ll never happen. I’ll never get to where I need to be if I play with the Ravens.”

A sharp pain hits Jeremy’s right leg, and he hisses as it flows through him. He keeps his eyes trained on Josten, willing him to stop talking through the television.

“Besides,” he continues, and Jeremy feels like crying, “I could barely tolerate them for two weeks. I can’t imagine playing with them for four years. They’re horrible human beings.”

A flash rolls through Jeremy’s head behind his eyes, and he cries out at the white-hot sensation. He hears Laila call out to him from the kitchen, but he isn’t able to respond as he feels another blow to the side, and he doubles over on the couch, panting. He feels hands on the back of his neck, and he isn’t sure whether they’re real or his imagination.

The pain fades away, though the after-shock feeling is still there. He’s able to catch the last of Josten’s interview, and it makes him nearly puke.

“Keep an eye on us, won’t you? It’s going to be an interesting year.”

* * *

The Foxes’ cars are trashed, and Jeremy wakes up with no fresh bruises for the first time in months.

* * *

Kengo Moriyama dies nearly a month later.

Jeremy blacks out that night, covered in patches of blue and purple and orange and red.

* * *

“Did you hear about Neil Josten?”

The Palmetto striker makes headlines for a week, his name and his face plastered everywhere for the world to see.

“Yeah. And did you hear about Kevin Day?”

The fact that the second striker had never been skiing was something that no one had quite gotten over, along with the discovery of his father.

“It’s crazy. And then there’s Jean Moreau, too.”

The backliner had dropped off of the radar, missing from the last game and rumored to be out for the season. It was a whirlwind of stories for the press, and even more of a whirlwind of emotion for the fans.

All that Jeremy knew was that no new bruises had appeared since the night Kengo died, and he hopes more than anything that it will stay that way.

* * *

“I have a backliner for you. Do you have room on next year’s line-up?”

Jeremy watches the Foxes behind Kevin; he catches sight of their goalie and striker. Minyard stands with a glare next to their number 10, eyes scanning the stadium with disinterest. When he turns, Jeremy notices a splash of orange across the left side of his face. It matches the burns scarring Josten’s cheek.

_ Soulmates _ , Jeremy thinks.

He asks how soon Jean can be flown to California.

* * *

"Let me make sure I heard you correctly," the reporter asks, shoving her microphone further into Jeremy’s face. "Jean Moreau is leaving Edgar Allan for USC?"

"We ordered his gear this morning," Jeremy says, his smile nearly reaching his ears. "We'll have to get him some sun this summer, though! He's a little pale to pull off red and gold right now."

He laughs, and it feels as if a 10 ton weight has been lifted from his chest. Saying the words out loud to the public makes it seem more real than it has ever been. "Unfortunately his number was taken already, but Jean said we can reassign him to whatever's open. I'll let him tell you what his new one is going to be."

Jeremy scratches at the mark on his left cheek, heart racing, and he swears he can feel it grow warm underneath his touch.

He smiles into the cameras, finishing up his interview, wondering if Jean was watching from his place with the Foxes, very far away but very, very safe.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a second part, and I'm working on it now!
> 
> Thank you for reading!!


End file.
